The Accidental Family

by Rowan Coleman

  “Why? Because I love him and he makes me happy—Cal, I’ve honestly never been happier in my life than when I’m with him. He was so sweet and nervous about proposing, and you should see the ring he picked out for me. Vintage 1930s—it is perfect—”

  “No, I don’t mean why did you say yes,” Cal interrupted her. “Of course you said yes. And of course he asked you, he’s crazy about you. I mean, why did he ask you to marry him now? You’ve only been there for six months. You don’t even have any wellies. Are you pregnant?”

  “Cal! No, I’m not pregnant! And I don’t need any wellies to know that I want to marry him, and he obviously doesn’t need me to have any to want to marry him,” Sophie said. “It’s not as if either of us is a feckless teen. I’m thirty-three nearly, and he’ll be thirty-six in …” Sophie trailed off, realizing she wasn’t 100 percent certain of the birth month of her betrothed, let alone the actual date. “A few months.”

  “Well, I have always thought that impending death is a good enough reason for a proposal,” Cal said drily.

  “Oh, for god’s sake, Cal!” Sophie snapped at him. “You’re the one who persuaded me to leave London and come down here. You’re the one who said I should be spontaneous and grab happiness and all of that. Well, I’ve done that and I’m still doing it—why aren’t you happy for me?”

  When Cal spoke it was with the warmth that Sophie had been hoping for. “Of course I am. Of course I am happy for you, Sophie,” Cal said. “It was just a bit of a shock that you, Sophie Mills, are getting married to a man who actually exists in reality and not just in your head. Oh, Sophie, my little girl, finally all grown up …,” Cal trailed off, and Sophie couldn’t be certain but she thought she heard the faintest sniff.

  “What?” Sophie urged him.

  “It’s just you, happy and in love and getting married. It’s just brilliant and I’m delighted for you, which is odd for me because I hardly ever care about anyone else’s happiness. And who cares if it’s quick. I’ve conducted whole relationships between breakfast and dinner on the same day!”

  “And you are really, really pleased for me? Because, Cal—I’m so happy and I’m so sure and you know that I’ve never been terribly good at being either of those things before.”

  “Sophie Mills, you’ve done what so many people never have the guts to do,” Cal told her. “You’ve chased down happiness, rugby-tackled it to the floor, and pinned it there until it had no choice but to submit to your will or suffocate under your substantial weight. And frankly, as it was mainly me who persuaded you to move down there and go after Louis in the first place, making me entirely responsible for all of your newfound happiness, then I demand that you make me your chief bridesmaid.”

  “Ah,” Sophie told him. “I think there might be some stiff competition for that role, although I will accept bribes.”

  Christina, Sophie’s last remaining single friend, actually cried when Sophie broke the news. And they weren’t tears of joy either. They were wet, rattling sobs that required deep, rasping, inward breaths to sustain them, which Christina seemed to manage to be able to do indefinitely.

  “Don’t cry, Christina,” Sophie begged her. “At least not in a bad way. You’re kind of bringing the overjoyed and happy vibe down a bit.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not crying really, if I was crying really, then what sort of sad clichéd single woman in her thirties would that make me?” Christina wailed. “I’m premenstrual. They are irrational premenstrual tears. It’s my hormones that are making me cry …and really, that should make me feel happy—at least I still have hormones—see, there’s always a bright side.”

  “Yes, it’s a little different from the bright side I was thinking of, but still …”

  “Now I really am the last one, aren’t I?” Christina asked. “I really am the final aged single friend, the one who’ll turn up in a BBC Two documentary about women who can’t find love and need a specialist’s advice …I didn’t think I would be the last one to find someone. I really thought it would be you.”

  “It’s so touching that everyone had such high hopes for me,” Sophie muttered.

  “I suppose there’s always Alison,” Christina said, referring to a woman Sophie had met briefly. “I mean, she’s been married and had kids but now she’s getting a divorce, so she’s single, and maybe it’s worse being single and divorced than just single, but at least she’s been married even if it was to a total jerk—what do you think?”

  “I think you’ll probably meet someone at my wedding,” Sophie said to cheer Christina up, suddenly thrilling at the thought of being able to set an actual date when she would be able to make Louis her husband. “There’ll be loads of fishermen and surfers and just men in general, hundreds of them.”

  “Really?” Christina perked up considerably. “When is it going to be, is it going to be soon? I know this designer who will make you bespoke personalized invites …He’s single, well, when I say single I mean he’s not married yet, which I think counts as single, I think men are fair game until they’ve got that wedding ring on, don’t you?”

  Briefly Sophie thought of the way Wendy had looked at her fiancé.

  “No, I certainly do not,” Sophie said, a little more firmly than she’d meant to.

  “Oh sorry, forgot,” Christina said. “You’re on the other side now.”

  Sophie thought for a long time before ringing her mother. She was aware that not only should her mother have been first on her list of calls to make, no matter where m came in the alphabet, she should also probably have gone home, along with her betrothed, to tell her mother face-to-face that she was getting married. Iris Mills barely knew her future son-in-law, and although she had taken Sophie’s sudden departure to Cornwall with good grace and was even pleased for her, Sophie wasn’t sure how she’d feel about her making the move permanent. Her relationship with her mother hadn’t been an easy one since her father died suddenly when she was a teenager. There had been distance between them ever since, a sort of nameless and entirely unfounded blame. Sophie was always cross and impatient with her mother, and after the only man in either of their lives had gone, Iris seemed detached from her daughter, more caught up with the various waif and stray dogs she collected from the streets of North London than with Sophie.

  It was only when Sophie had taken on Bella and Izzy that she turned to Iris for help, the first help of any kind that she had ever asked for since she was fifteen years old. Gradually their relationship had changed and Sophie had found a way to relate to her mother again. It had been Iris who convinced Sophie that a small amount of cat food probably wasn’t fatal for a three-year-old, Iris who had babysat the girls even though she knew that wherever the two children were, the risk of fire and flood damage increased at an alarming rate. And it was Iris who had assured Sophie that Sophie would be able to cope with whatever situation was thrown at her because, if anyone could cope with two small, bereaved children, then it was her strong and capable daughter. For the first time in decades, Sophie began to see that her mother admired her, and they had slowly drawn closer together. Sophie had spoken to her about twice a week since she’d come down to St. Ives, but they’d never spoken about anything serious. Her mum would always say how lovely it was to hear her sounding so happy and relaxed and then they’d talk about fleas, ticks, or dicky-doggy tummy for the next half hour.

  But there was no getting away from it; a conversation about ear mites was not going to cut it this time. Sophie had to tell her mother that she was engaged in the business of getting married.

  As ever, Sophie had to wait for a cacophony of barking dogs to die down as her mother rescued the handset from the jaws of Scooby, her Great Dane, and clambered over a pack of hounds to the kitchen, where she would shut most of them out so that she could talk in relative peace.

  “Hello, love,” Iris said. “It’s not your normal day to call.”

  “Isn’t it?” Sophie had not been aware that she had a normal day to call, but she wasn’
t surprised, her life had slipped into a soothing lullaby of a routine since she had arrived here. “Well, that’s because it’s not a normal day!” she added brightly.

  “You’re telling me,” Iris sighed. “You remember Skippers, that little Jack Russell cross that was left tied up in a plastic bag in that Dumpster on Balls Pond Road? Well, he got hold of the neighbor’s trash cans yesterday, had them out all over the street, so you can imagine how popular that made me with the neighbors again.”

  “Mum …” Sophie paused and took a breath. “Mum, I can’t talk to you about the dogs today. I have some news.”

  Sophie paused to let the weight of the word sink into her mother’s dog-filled consciousness.

  “News?” Iris asked. “Oh, are you pregnant?”

  “No!” Sophie was scandalized. “No, I am not pregnant, but …oh honestly, Mum—you’ve totally stolen my thunder. Louis and I are getting married!” Sophie paused for a beat, but when Iris didn’t immediately react she rushed on. “And I have the happiest and most content and most alive feeling that I have ever had and you should feel really, really happy for me!”

  “I’m thrilled for you, darling,” Iris said, a little hesitantly, as soon as Sophie let her get a word in.

  “Are you?” Sophie asked uncertainly.

  “Of course I am. If you’re happy, I’m happy. I’m honor bound to say the sorts of things that mothers say, like isn’t it a bit soon and are you sure you know him well enough to marry him?”

  Sophie paused; after all, these were the doubts she herself had had.

  “Yes, Mum, it is technically a bit soon and no, I don’t know every single thing about him. But I love him and want him and need him now—and isn’t it better to find out about the person you love as you go along together? Wouldn’t life be boring if you knew everything about your partner right from the start? And I want this, I want it really badly. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted it until now that I’ve almost got it. I couldn’t bear to lose him.”

  “Well, I can’t think of any reason why you would,” Iris said. “But believe it or not, darling, I do remember how that feels and I understand. You love him and he loves you and you want to grab happiness and cling to it with both hands. Okay, so you’re breaking boundaries and stretching taboos …but who cares what other people say if you’re happy?”

  “Am I stretching a taboo?” Sophie asked her. “What? Because he’s already been married to my dead best friend?”

  “Did I say taboos?” Iris paused as she gathered her thoughts. “I don’t think you realize how proud I am of you. I so much admired you for picking up and going off to Cornwall the way you did to be with Louis and the girls. It’s so easy to sit behind your net curtains, watch your favorite TV shows all day, and just let life slip past you without any passion or promise. But you took a stand. You were determined not to let that be you, leading a half existence until you die, and I don’t think I ever told you how much you inspired me. I’ve wasted too much time since your father passed away, and seeing you take that chance with Louis made me really think about my own life, Sophie, I—”

  “Oh, Mum, you don’t know how much it means to hear you say that.” Tears sprang into Sophie’s eyes and she realized exactly how much she had wanted Iris to be pleased for her.

  “That man, those children, have made you so happy and so content,” Iris went on. “I couldn’t be more delighted for you. And listen, I know that how you got together was a little unconventional, but none of that matters, and don’t you worry, I know just the person to look after the dogs while I’m down there helping you organize the wedding—oh! That reminds me—did I tell you about Scooby?”

  “No, has he got another hernia?” Sophie asked resignedly. Sophie knew that her mother loved her more than any other person alive. Whether or not she loved any person more than she loved her dogs was a moot point.

  There was one other person Sophie had to tell, only this time she could not call. She had to find the right place to relay the news; after some reflection she decided that she had to go alone. Louis was still on the phone when she pulled her sneakers and rainproof anorak on.

  “I’m going for a bit of a walk, get my head together,” she whispered to him. He nodded and smiled, crossing the room in two easy strides to plant a warm kiss on her lips and hug her tightly before saying into the phone, “Yes, mate, I’m a condemned man and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

  It was blustery and cold on the cliffs that rose above St. Ives. The sea was gray and foreboding, merging with a dark sky that threatened rain. The shortening autumn day was already darkening and Sophie found herself alone on the cliff top, the season’s last remaining tourists chased away by the bite of the wind and the warm promise of the tearooms.

  Sophie had thought long and hard about where to tell Carrie that she was marrying Louis. Carrie didn’t have a grave. She had never wanted anything so sober or depressing to be left behind for people to stand over, or, worse, forget. There were really only two places that Sophie could think of to find her friend. There was Carrie’s little house on Virgin Street, where she had started her married life, lived as a family with Bella and Louis at first and then raised her two children alone after he’d found out about her affair. Or there was here, the spot where Carrie had loved to walk and paint and gaze out to sea daydreaming, planning her future. The spot where Carrie had first met Louis.

  Carrie’s house was occupied now. A sweet young couple had bought it. Louis was determined to sell it to local people who would make a home of it and not a holiday rental and had let it go for much less than it was worth.

  Sophie remembered talking to the woman, Emily, while she and her boyfriend had looked around the tiny house. Emily told Sophie that she’d met Steve in a nightclub in Newquay two years ago. They’d dated on and off and Steve had left her briefly when he thought that everything was getting too heavy. But a few months later, he had found her again and told her he realized that he loved her, and now they were buying their first home. On that sunny afternoon in the tiny living room where Carrie used to sit and sing Manic Street Preacher’s songs to her daughters, Sophie found herself envying the couple. Theirs had been a slow and gentle romance, an easy approach to commitment that seemed full of assurance and certainty. They had a benign confidence in the future that, even as happy as she was, Sophie had lost a long time ago and thought she would probably never regain.

  While Sophie thought the couple would probably let her come in now for a moment or two, it didn’t seem like the right place to find Carrie, especially now that her things would not be there. Carrie was never the kind of person to hang around in the past, she was always moving on.

  It was here on the cliff top, overlooking the wild wind-and rain-whipped sea, that Sophie knew she would be able to find Carrie, where she’d be able to picture her and remember her most clearly. Carrie, who always seemed to have the wind in her hair, even indoors. Who always had a certain light in her eyes and a kind of restless grace that made you feel she was constantly on the verge of leaving. It was only when she was with her children that Sophie ever saw her friend become completely still, her lips pressed against their hair, her eyes closed as she held them. Carrie was like the sea she had always been drawn to. Always moving, always changing, often dangerous and sometimes perfectly serene. Yes, it was here that Sophie would find her.

  “Hello, Carrie.” Sophie spoke into the wind, which snatched her words away with urgent, greedy gusts. She felt her stomach contract and realized how nervous she was. “I’m going to marry Louis. I’m going to marry your husband. There—I’ve said it, and no matter how many times I say it out loud, it still sounds like a reader’s true story in a gossip magazine. But there it is; it’s happening …it really is happening. You know, ever since I met Bella and Izzy and Louis, I’ve wondered what you’d think, how you’d feel about it if you were here. I tried to love your girls because I loved you, and that was a lot easier than I thought. And I tried not to love Louis because
I loved you, and I’m sorry, Carrie …but that was impossible.”

  Sophie pushed her windswept hair off her face and took a deep breath. “The hardest thing is that I know I would never have met them if you hadn’t died. I would probably have gone on having my secretary send them gifts and cards every birthday and Christmas. Louis might have stayed in Peru, and who knows if I would have seen you again. It breaks my heart that I had to lose you to find them …but, Carrie, you knew that I would fight for your daughters, that’s why you made me their guardian, and you knew that after quite a lot of stupidity and a serious number of epiphanies I would love them as much as I do. And I’ll never let them down, I promise you.

  “I don’t suppose you expected me to fall in love with Louis. I don’t suppose that I expected it. How could I, uptight, repressed me, ever be attracted to the man you once loved? He took me by surprise, Carrie. But I do love him, I love him an incredibly frightening heart-stopping amount, and I do …I do want to marry him. I do. So I’ve come to ask you …to tell you, that this is what I am going to do …one day, after we’ve set a date and saved up a bit, because these things take ages to organize, so it might be months or even years yet …”

  Suddenly Sophie had a picture of her friend laughing, her eyes sparkling, her hair tossed in the wind. “Yes, you’re right, I am terrified about it. I am scared stiff, but I can’t see into the future. I can’t know what’s going to happen, how can I? You and I know that better than anyone. All I can know is that at this moment, this hour, this day I love him and I want to be with him. And right now I can’t imagine that’s going to change, and that’s all I can know, isn’t it?” Sophie smiled and closed her eyes, spreading her arms wide to embrace the full force of the wind that battered and rippled her coat. “We made each other a promise when we were girls—always, forever, whatever. You made that promise to your daughters, so have I, and now I’m making that promise to Louis.” Sophie opened her eyes and looked into the silver-streaked sky. “And I don’t know where you are, my dear, dear friend, but wherever you are I hope you’ll be happy for us.”